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“There is a clear agenda underway to degenerate a defeated community,” says Selvin Ireneus, a social activist based in Jaffna, the Tamils’ northern cultural heartland.

Ganeshalingam, head of political science at the University of Jaffna.

In Jaffna, local politician Thiyagaraja Nirosh says family elders discourage young people from discussing political rights.

It lies to the northeast to Rameswaram town in India's Tamil Nadu state and to the southwest of Sri Lanka's Jaffna city.

Ahilan Kadirgamar, an economist at the country’s Jaffna University, said the economy was likely to shrink by 10 percent.